Request

Under the freedom of information act, I am seeking data on NHS dentistry Please provide data on the number of NHS dentists providing NHS dentistry for each month in i) England ii) each NHS region of England iii) Wales iv) each health board of Wales, by financial year, April 2010-present. This builds on FOI Request Final Response 25480

Response

April 2010 to March 2014

Information held prior to April 2014 is held in our legacy data warehouse. Information held in this system is not easily accessible. Locating, retrieving and extracting this information would involve effort which exceeds the 18 hour appropriate limit for performing the tasks required to answer your request for data covering this period.

Therefore, I estimate that the cost of complying with this aspect of your request would exceed the non-central Government limit of £450. The limit has been specified in The Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 and represents the estimated cost of one person spending 18 hours in determining whether the NHSBSA holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information. Under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the NHSBSA is not obliged to comply with your request and I will not be processing this aspect of your request further.

It may be of interest to you to know that data is available in the public domain which provides similar data covering the period requested. This can be found at the below web link:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/nhs-dental-statistics

April 2014 to May 2022

A copy of the information is attached. Please read the below notes to ensure correct understanding of the data.

Guidance Notes
This report contains the details from FP17s processed for the period stated April 2014 to May 2022 in England Regions & Wales Health Bodies. All contracts paid by NHSBSA. The information within the report includes the data items and descriptions listed below. Only Performers who were active delivering UDA/UOA during the period.

Region Description: This is the name associated with the Region.

Commissioner Code: This is the 3 character code associated with the Commissioning Organisation. This a generic term used to denote health bodies, either Area Teams in England or Health Boards in Wales. Also known as Primary Care Organisations (PCOs)

Commissioner Name: This is the name associated with the Commissioning Organisation. This is a generic term used to denote health bodies, either Area Teams in England or Health Boards in Wales. Also known as Primary Care Organisations (PCOs))

Number of Performers: The number of Dentists as recorded on CoMPASS.

If you have any queries regarding the data provided, or if you plan on publishing, the data please contact nhsbsa.foirequests@nhs.net ensuring you quote the above reference. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

If you plan on producing a press or broadcast story based upon the data please contact nhsbsa.communicationsteam@nhs.net. This is important to ensure that the figures are not misunderstood or misrepresented.

The information supplied to you continues to be protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and is subject to NHSBSA copyright. This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence detailed at: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Should you wish to re-use the information you must include the following statement: “Dental Services, NHSBSA Copyright 2022” This information is licenced under the terms of the Open Government Licence:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Failure to do so is a breach of the terms of the licence.

Information you receive which is not subject to NHSBSA Copyright continues to be protected by the copyright of the person, or organisation, from which the information originated.

Please obtain their permission before reproducing any third party (non NHSBSA Copyright) information.